Goodland

Sloppy casting of this "16 year old girl." Movie could have been better. Acting was pretty dry

This movie starts out pretty well and holds your interest all the way through. Good cast, good story, fair dialog, great cinematography. So, kudos for that -- as far as it goes.

However, this is a movie without an ending. It's one of those movies where the writer/director knew what the ending meant, and thought he would be clever "implying" the ending; but he remains the only person alive who knows that the ending means. For everybody else, there wasn't enough information, so now we feel like the whole thing was a waste of time.

Maybe he was setting up a "Part 2" ? But at this rate, it will never be financed. Well, maybe it will, since part 1 probably shouldn't have been financed either, but it was. In any case, I'd love to see an explanation as to what happened. If all he was saying was "The U.S.A. is a crime-ridden hell hole," we didn't need this film to tell us that. Just read the papers.

I just couldn't buy the 16-year-old character being played by a 26 year old woman.

This is a low-budget indie film that looks it, and a better, stronger cast probably could have added more "sizzle". That said ...

The cinematography is the most engaging part of the film, and may be the real star. It's not flashy or effects-heavy. No obvious CGI or fancy cutting. Just honest scenic filming that shows the town, the environment, some representative inhabitants, and some outlying territory.

Overall, I've seen better acting in adult community theater and worse, which is to say that the acting, while adequate to the story, will not hit you like a shot of caffeine on a sleepy day.

Some of the dialog feels unnatural to the ear, some of the characters' motivations seem vague, and the key elements of the story reveal themselves in the last half hour while still leaving some room for assumptive guessing at the end.

This movie isn't a waste of your time if you like good camerawork, visions of a slowly-suffocating smalltown America, and a slow plot that eventually mostly gets where it's going; mostly.

A final mystery is left dangling, but with enough suggestion that the answer seems mostly obvious enough to offer a mildly frustrating closure.

A good movie for idle curiosity watched on a personal low-energy night

Though the picture offers nothing spectacular, neither does it stumble. Moments of excellent camera work frame a solid story told by skilled players. Entirely believable, suspenseful if not surprising, and - most importantly for this kind of effort - never overdone. I recommend it for a spare hour or so.